Design trends

Vines- More Than Just a Pretty Face

Vines are beautiful to look at when in bloom or fall color. Fragrant vines can scent the air when you’re sitting outside on the patio. Vines can make a quick screen from the next-door neighbor. They can help create distinct garden rooms. And best of all, many vines attract birds, bees and butterflies.

Creating an outdoor room with vines can make your yard feel cozy. They readily provide the walls to enclose a space. Views from one part of the garden may be partially open, framed by vines or blocked entirely. Shrubs can also be used to create garden rooms but vines form a thin living wall that is quickly established. Creating boundaries with vines also adds vertical design elements to an otherwise flat landscape. By adding walls and a ceiling to your garden, you’ll be able to enjoy another dimension in addition to more color and fragrance too.

Zephterine Drouhin climbing rose with clematis ‘Jackmanii’

If your trees aren’t big enough to provide shade yet, vines on a pergola or lattice work can cool a west facing patio. They can also block the wind making your garden more comfortable. Vines with large, soft leaves can soften sounds that would otherwise bounce off hard surfaces. Birds will love you for your vines. They offer shelter for many species and nectar for others.

I’m always amazed at the variety of vines my friend Richard grows up into the canopy of his many trees. From Lady Banks rose to clematis to blood-red trumpet vine to a spectacular double white pandorea vine his trees do double duty in his garden. In your own garden think about trees, shrubs and even sturdy vines as support for other vines.

For a vine with long lasting interest, try growing an orange trumpet creeper up into a tree. It blooms from midsummer to early autumn and hummingbirds love it. It can tolerate wet or dry conditions, sun or shade and is generally pest free.

Plant vines for fragrance in your garden. Evergreen clematis (clematis arrnandii) bloom with showy white fragrant flowers clusters above dark green leaves. They’re in full bloom right now. There’s one growing over a fence near where I used to live.You can smell it when you drive by. Clematis montana is another variety of clematis that’s covered with vanilla scented pink flowers in spring also. Carolina jessamine’s fragrant yellow flower clusters appear in masses from late winter into spring. Other fragrant vines include wisteria, climbing roses, jasmine and honeysuckle varieties.

Another way to double your pleasure with vines is to let the thick stems of a mature, vigorous vine such as grape, wisteria, passionflower or a large climbing rose like Lady Banks serve as a framework for a more delicate stemmed vine like clematis or Goldflame honeysuckle (lonicera heckrottii)

Or you can enjoy the classic combination of a flowering clematis like purple Jackmanii intertwined with a white Iceberg rambling rose for another great look. Other vines that are beautiful and easy to grow is our native honeysuckle, lonicera hispidula, with translucent red berries in the fall. Violet trumpet vine, white potato vine, hardenbergia and Chilean jasmine are also good choices.

Growing vines is easy if you follow a few guidelines. To encourage bush growth on young vines, pinch out the stems’ terminal buds. If you want just a few vertical stems, though, don’t pinch the ends but instead remove all but one or two long stems at the base.

Often when I’m called out to take a look at a vine that has gotten out of control the only advice I can give is to cut the entire vine to the ground in late winter or early spring and start training it all over again. You can avoid this drastic measure by pruning periodically to keep your vine in bounds. Just before new growth begins, cut out unwanted or dead growth. If you can’t tell what to remove, cut the vine’s length by half and remove the dead stems later. On vines like hardenbergia or Carolina jessamine that bloom in late winter, wait to prune until after they have finished flowering.

Many vines require only deep but infrequent waterings. They provide so much beauty for so little effort.

Design trends

The Mountain Gardener Celebrates 900 Columns

Take inspiration from this cottage in Guatemala for that shed
in your backyard.

Well, it’s come to this – my 900th column. Starting way back in October of 2005 my first column appeared in the newly combined San Lorenzo Valley Press and the Scotts Valley Banner which was re-named the Press Banner. This is how it all got started.

My father wanted me to be a writer and researcher for National Geographic, encouraging me to take writing and science classes. My interest in nature and photography was the easy part. It was the 60’s, though, and if you grew up then you know that one didn’t always do what was expected of you. I did study science at Humboldt State and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and aced the plant taxonomy and science classes.

After I moved here, I started working at a local nursery which really wasn’t work at all. Then one day I had an idea. I typed up a sample column and marched into the editor’s office for the Press Banner. Little did I know that he had taken horticulture classes himself and so had a soft spot for my idea to write a weekly gardening column. Next thing I know he’s saying he wants 5 columns, 400 words each, excluding prepositions, on his desk by Friday and the column would be called ‘The Mountain Gardener’ and not ‘Ask Jan’ which I had suggested. I knew my father would be proud. I was a newspaper columnist.

So on this anniversary of my 900th column I want to share with you some interesting gardening lore and stories from my travels over the years.

From Doc Hencke’s wonderful arboretum-like landscape I have learned about trees. From Robby, the serial mole killer, I learned about smart irrigation and the value of strolling in your garden, beverage in hand, to identify problems early. From the collections of Ron, Marc, Pete and Ed of Santa Cruz Bonsai Kai club I discovered the world of bonsai.

A fellow landscape designer I know was born on Halloween so she celebrates this holiday in a big way. The days following are called Day of the Dead or Dia de Muertes. Families gather together to remember and honor their deceased loved one. It’s a sacred and joyous time. Day of the Dead traditions include food and flowers which is where those of us who love plants come in.

I was in Central Mexico in the highlands of Chiapas many years ago during this celebration and was able to experience this tradition and enjoy the hundreds of marigolds growing around cottages and decorating every small business and church. In the village of San Juan Chamala, marigolds grew in the dozens of greenhouses.

I’ll never forget another trip I took to Guatemala, Honduras and Utila, an island off the coast of Honduras. It was on Utila that I saw plants growing in washing machine baskets. I thought it was a clever way to re-use old appliances but wondered why there were so many old washing machines on a tiny island. A local laughed at me for asking about them and told me the baskets protect their plants from the big blue crabs that come out at night. Seems they’ll sever the stems right at ground level and drag the whole plant into their hole. Also the baskets protect the plants from iguanas who will eat anything within two feet of the ground. And you thought deer and bunnies were a problem?

More recently I have enjoyed visits to Filoli Gardens, Valley Churches United garden tour last year, Gamble Gardens and their annual garden tour as well as the fabulous gardens of my landscape designer friends.

I get emails and texts often from readers asking for advice. I’m happy to problem solve anyway I can. Text me a picture and if I can help, I will. Over the years, Lompico resident, Tom Miller, has reached out many times with gardening questions. Several years ago he posed with his collection of The Mountain Gardening columns that he cut out of the paper and saved. Sitting on his deck with all the clippings and flowering pots, it’s quite a testament to his loyalty. So Tom, are you still saving my columns now that I’m up to 900 of them or have you run out of space on your desk?

Live and learn. Hope springs eternal in gardening as it is in life. I hope you have enjoyed reading the last 900 columns as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

Design trends

Gardening in the Real World

With our gardens coming to life at this time of year we are hopeful that each plant will achieve its full during this growing season. But that doesn’t always turn out to be the case and sometimes it’s hard to figure out what exactly is the problem. Growing plants isn’t an exact science. What works over at the neighbors yard doesn’t always apply to ours. What are the different factors that can make a plant thrives or just mope along? And how can you plan when one “reliable” plant source says the plant will get 6 ft tall an another shows that same plant as reaching 8-12 ft tall and just as wide?

When designing a garden whether it’s a client’s or my own tiny garden, I need to take into account the growing conditions such as soil type, nutrients, water requirements, high and low temperature, space and light. Most all plants use water to carry moisture and nutrients back and forth between the roots and leaves. Some need more water than others to do this but all have their own levels of tolerance. Too little or too much water or nutrients can be harmful to your plant’s progress.

Healthy soil provides an anchor for plant roots and helps support the plant in addition to providing nutrients. Healthy soil contains micro organisms and adding organic matter to your soil when you plant and in the form of mulch will increase your soil’s fertility.

Choosing the right plant for the right spot is another important factor but how can you determine if your garden has the right amount of sun or shade or moisture? In our area a good rule of thumb in deciding if your plant is getting enough or too much sun is to look up during the growing season and see how many hours of sun, part sun, bright shade or partial shade your area is receiving. To simplify, it’s not as important what is going on during the winter but knowing the summer conditions is crucial. Too little light can make plants weak and leggy looking with few flowers or fruit.

Allow enough space for your plant to grow. Plants can become stunted without enough room to grow and overcrowded plants often get diseased when air doesn’t freely flow between them. There’s a difference in a plant that just needs a little time to kick in and really start growing and one that is not thriving. Be patient.

Plant your new addition correctly. When digging the hole be sure that you loosen surrounding soil 2-3 times the width of the root ball. There is no rule that you can’t loosen the soil even wider around your planting hole. Use the shovel to loosen the edges of the hole so that it’s not hard and smooth. Roots have an easier time of growing out from the initial hole is sides aren’t hard as a rock.

If dry fill with water 3x and let drain. You can loosen the soil below the depth of the root ball if it’s really hard and amend it also. Because most of us live where the soil is sandy or clay I recommend amending 25%. Even natives are grown in soil that is better than some of our native soils around here. Be sure to firm the soil underneath the plant so the crown of your plant doesn’t sink below grade and drown during winter rains or watering. Planting a bit higher than the surrounding soil also allows for 2 inches of wood chip mulch or some compost making sure the mulch doesn’t touch the crown which could cause rot. Water your new plant to eliminate air pockets and settle the soil. Do this even if your soil is moist already.

If you have a steep hillside, a super sunny or deep shade location or problem soil all the above tips are important for your planting success. Email me for more tips.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget the deer repellent even if your plant is “deer tolerant”. Don’t take a chance with your new plant at least at first when it’s filled with yummy nitrogen and new growth.

Design trends

Natives attract Birds, Bees & Butterflies

It’s always a breathtaking experience taking a walk at this time of year. You might see the cobalt blue flowers of ceanothus or a stand of dicentra formosa with their dainty pink bell-shaped flowers backlit in the spring sunlight. Coral bells are in full bloom as are the Pacific coast iris. These are just a few of our local native plants. Everywhere you look nature is beginning the season fresh with anticipation and promise.

California is a vast domain when it comes to natural features and different soils. From hills and mountains to deserts, valleys and ocean bluffs, there are 6000 plus plant species within our borders. Hundreds of these are showy and useful plants worthy of cultivation in our garden. Some, like ceanothus, have already been cultivated for a century or more, both here and abroad.

There are features of the California landscape that present a certain flavor and seasonal progression, quite distinct from that of the subtropics and year-round, moist forests that many traditional garden plants come from. Plants of hilly and mountainous areas are often found in rocky or sandy soils and require well-drained garden soils. Many plants of the chaparral have poor resistance to the root pathogens that thrive in a warm, moist soil and may not tolerate typical garden style irrigation in summer.

Matching or creating the right conditions is the key to success to grow California natives. Planting on a raised mound or berm, for instance, is one way to drain water away from sensitive crowns. Knowing where in California a given native plant comes from can help you make the right decisions.

That being said there are many natives with an amazing broad tolerance of different conditions. Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) grows in both sandy and clay soils as does yarrow (Achillea millifolium) which is also a good cut flower. Carex grass and Seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) also do well in most soils.

If you garden in clay soils, good native shrubs are Western redbud, manzanita, spicebush, bush anemone, ceanothus, garrya, Pacific wax myrtle, Western mock orange, blue elderberry, mahonia, California wild rose and snowberry. Native perennials for clay soil include coral bells, sticky monkeyflower (a good cut flower), salvias, deer grass, rubus and Dutchman’s pipe vine.

Sandy conditions require California natives that are decidedly drought tolerant. You may already grow many of our manzanitas and ceanothus. But do you also have lupine, lavatera, coffeeberry, buckwheat, fuchsia-flowering gooseberry, purple sage, wallflower or the beautiful Douglas iris?

Then there are the folks that live in the shade. Native plants from canyons and riparian areas will do well in your garden. They require some summer watering but that’s all. Native shrubs that tolerate bright shade are manzanita, spicebush, bush anemone, ceanothus, mahonia, Pacific wax myrtle, any of the ribes, wild rose, snowberry and huckleberry. Perennials for color are columbine, Western bleeding heart, California. fuchsia, Douglas iris and coral bells.

Where ever you garden, to provide food, nectar or berries for our winged friends be sure you have some flowering currant, sticky monkey flower, coffeeberry, salvia clevelandii, Dutchman’s pipe vine, wax myrtle, California fuchsia, aster chilensis.

Design trends

The Wonderful World of Wisteria

Wisteria are one of those vines that you either long for or lament ever having planted. They are all fragrant with a delicious sweet scent that varies from faint to strong to almost overpowering. Bees and hummingbirds love them. Here are some tips to choose and enjoy one in your garden.

Wisteria are one of nature’s most resilient survivors. They are able to withstand and recover quickly from difficult conditions. To some they are a little too tough for their own good with a growth rate rivaling bamboo during the summer. If you dream of a wisteria-covered pergola shading your patio here are some maintenance tips that are sure to keep both gardener and vine happy.

Wisteria are so vigorous they can be pruned at any time, keeping them in bounds and clearing out unwanted or dead growth. Prune out any stems you see extending into eaves, windows or shingles. If yours has gotten away from you, you can even prune it down to the ground and start over with training although you’ll have to wait a few years for your vine to bloom again.

To their control size major pruning is done during the dormant season. Start by trimming the long tendrils that grew over the summer back to about 6 inches from the main trunk. Cutting the tendrils back in this way will initiate flower bud development, neaten the plant up, and show off the attractive trusty, gnarly character of the vines.

Whatever time you do renovation pruning remember the response of the wisteria to aggressive pruning is to literally explode with new runners. They put energy into new vegetative growth at the expense of flowering. Make sure you keep up on ongoing maintenance pruning by removing all unwanted runners right to their point of origin. Then prune back the others to 3 buds or sets of leaves. Repeated pruning of these runners is what will eventually give you spurs of wood, short laterals that in turn will provide you with flower clusters. You need to prune these runners all season long which ends up being every 3-4 weeks.

Do not fertilize your wisteria. They do not flower well if there is an over abundance of luxuriant growth. Over feeding also ends up giving them the means to become un unmanageable monster. If you have trouble getting your vine to flower an application of a high phosphorus fertilizer may promote blooming.

Maintaining a wisteria requires some diligence but the reward is worth the effort. Remember this especially during winter pruning season to make summer maintenance easier. If you find that the wisteria vine has invaded a nearby bed, cut roots with a shovel below the soil line to control any that have wandered.

Which variety of wisteria should you get to cover your arbor, pergola, tree or other structure?

Chinese varieties such at ‘Cooke’s Special’ have clusters of fragrant blue-purple flowers 20 inches long. This variety can re-bloom which makes it a favorite. Chinese wisteria can take up to 20 years to mature enough to produce flowers, but once it has matured, the plant is very long lived and can live up to 100 years.

Japanese wisteria like ‘Caroline’ bloom early with mauve flowers. ‘Royal Purple’ , known also as ‘Black Dragon’ , has sweetly scented dark purple flowers. Japanese wisteria are most effective when grown on pergolas so their long flower cluster can hang freely.

American wisteria, native to more eastern areas of the U.S. is a smaller, less invasive species that grows about a third the rate of Asian wisteria. ‘Amethyst Falls’ blooms at an early age with lightly fragrant purple racemes. Use in containers for porch or patio, train up an arbor or trellis or as a small free-standing tree.

Silky varieties produce a profusion of short, 6 inch, fat clusters of strongly scented flowers that open all at once. They have velvety seed pods and bloom best in full sun.

All parts of the wisteria vine contain a toxin known as wisteria which can cause stomach upset. Growers should also be wary of pets and children eating the flowers or seed pods.

Design trends

Filoli Gardens in May

What fun is must have been for the children raised in the 1900’s at Filoli Estate. You can just imagine what a kid could do on 654 acres of orchards, fields and gardens creating a maize of places to hide and seek. As gardeners a visit to Filoli Gardens will inspire you to re-imagine what your own garden can be. It’s spring. Here are some of my takeaways from my recent visit to Filoli.

Filoli Gardens is a manicured garden around the mansion and carriage house so the paths are straight and formal. Lined with dwarf boxwood each path encloses a different grouping of plants that change with the seasons. Many of us have meandering paths in our gardens separating the different garden rooms. The elements of garden design, like arrangement of paths, planting beds and open spaces, shape your garden. Your eye is drawn along a path through a garden. The plantings along the sides serve to frame but it’s the style of the path itself that enhances your experience in the garden. Some of the paths at Filoli Garden are gravel, some grass and some brick and mortar. All draw the visitor deeper into the garden to explore and linger at each spot.

Every month there is a different assortment of trees, shrubs, bulbs and vines blooming at Filoli. On this visit the wisteria took center stage. Their fragrance was intoxicating. To keep them in check volunteers keep them pruned tightly. Yes, it’s an ongoing task but the rewards are worth it. I’ll cover wisteria care in another column so you’ll know how to live in peace with your wisteria.

As in any garden, color plays an important role. It’s the wow factor we all go for. At Filoli on my recent visit the foxglove were in full bloom. I liked the apricot ones growing under the wisteria outside the carriage house. But then a bed of dark rose foxglove under another wisteria vine caught my eye. In my humble opinion, the combination could have been enhanced with some white flowers or silver foliage to tone it down but this bed was breathtaking. Everyone was photographing it and posing in front. Something to remember is that light colors like pale pink and blue, creamy yellow and lavender are more vivid in low light or on an overcast day.

Another show stopper was a vivid red azalea blooming throughout the gardens. Even from a long distance you couldn’t help but be drawn to them. Many were planted to be viewed against the dark green foliage of large shrubs and the mature columnar yews. As opposites on the color wheel, red and green are complementary and striking when paired together.

Some of the best beds still had some late blooming tulips. One of my favorite combinations was the softest pink parrot tulips with the purple allium pom pom flowers towering overhead. Another bed featured medium pink tulips, allium, white foxglove and the feathery burgundy foliage of fennel. A nice combination indeed and one you wouldn’t think of normally.

A huge Beni Hoshi flowering cherry was in full bloom with soft pink rhododendrons below. There are so many varieties of rhododendrons that you can have them blooming from March until May. They are long-lived and deer resistant.

Like kids in a candy store, my fellow companions, who are both Master Gardeners, enjoyed every turn at Filoli Gardens. We plan to go back in a couple months for the next rotation of flowering trees, roses and perennials.

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